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for they teach not their own use, but that is a wisdom without them, and above them, won by observation. Read not to contradict and confute, nor to believe and take for granted, nor to find talk and discourse, but to weigh and confider. Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and fome few to be chewed and digested; that is, fome books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and fome few to be read wholly, and with diligence and attention. Some books alfo may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others: but that fhould be only in the lefs important arguments, and the meaner fort of books; elfe diftilled books are like common diftilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man ; conference a ready man; and writing an exact man. And therefore, if a man write little, he had need have a great memory; if he confer little, he had need have a prefent wit; and if he read little, he had need have much cunning to feem to know that he doth not.

.CHA P. X.

ON SATIRICAL WIT.

BACON.

-TRUS RUST me, this unwary pleafantry of thine will fooner or later bring thee into ferapes and difficulties which no after wit can extricate thee out of. In thefe fallies, too oft I fee, it happens, that the perfon laughed at confiders himself in the light of a person injured, with all the rights of fuch a fituation belonging to him; and when thou vieweft him in that light too, and reckoneft upon his friends, his family, his kindred and allies, and mufterest up with them the many recruits which will lift under him from

a fenfe

a fense of common danger; 'tis no extravagant arithmetic to fay, that for every ten jokes, thou haft got an hundred enemies; and, till thou haft gone on, and raised a swarm of wafps about thine ears, and art half ftung to death by them, thou wilt never be convinced it is fo.

I CANNOT suspect it in the man whom I efteem, that there is the least spur from spleen or malevolence of intent in these fallies. I believe and know them to be truly honeft and sportive; but confider, that fools cannot diftinguish this, and that knaves will not; and thou knoweft not what it is, either to provoke the one, or to make merry with the other whenever they affociate for mutual defence, depend upon it they will carry on the war in fuch a manner against thee, my dear friend, as to make thee heartily fick of it, and of thy life too.

:

REVENGE from fome baneful corner fhall level a tale of difhonour at thee, which no innocence of heart or integrity of conduct shall fet right. The fortunes of thy house shall totter-thy character, which led the way to them, shall bleed on every fide of it-thy faith queftioned-thy works belied-thy wit forgotten-thy learning trampled on. To wind up the last scene of thy tragedy, CRUELTY and CowARDICE, twin ruffians, hired and fet on by MALICE in the dark, fhall strike together at all thy infirmities and mistakes : the best of us, my friend, lie open there, and trust me→ when to gratify a private appetite, it is once refolved upon, that an innocent and an helplefs creature fhall be facrificed, it is an cafy matter to pick up fticks enough from any thicket where it has ftrayed, to make a fire to offer it up with.

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CHAP XI.

HAMLET's INSTRUCTIONS TO THE PLAYERS.

S

PEAK the fpeech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you trippingly on the tongue. But if you mouth it, as many of our players do, I had as lieve the town crier had spoke my lines. And do not faw the air too much with your hand thus; but ufe all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may fay, whirlwind of your paffion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness, Oh! it offends me to the foul, to hear a robusteous periwigpated fellow tear a paffion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings; who (for the most part) are capable of nothing but inexplicable dumb fhews and noife: I could have fuch a fellow whipp'd for o'erdoing termagant it out-herods Herod. Pray you, avoid it.

Be not too tame neither; but let your own difcretion be your tutor. Suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this fpecial obfervance, that you o'erftep not the modesty of nature; for any thing fo overdone is from the purpose of playing; whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to fhew virtue her own feature, fcorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time, his form and preffure. Now, this overdone, or come tardy of, though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve: the cenfure of one of which muft in your allowance o'erweigh a whole theatre of others. Oh! there be players that I have feen play; and heard others praife, and that highly (not to

fpeak

fpeak it profanely) that, neither having the accent of Chrif tian, nor the gait of Chriftian, Pagan, nor man, have fo ftrutted and bellowed, that I have thought some of nature's journeymen had made men, and not made them well; they imitated humanity fo abominably.

AND let those that play your clowns, fpeak no more than is fet down for them for there be of them that will themfelves laugh, to fet on fome quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the mean time, fome neceffary queftion of the play be then to be confidered :—that's villainous : and fhews a moft pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it. SHAKESPEAR

CHA P. XII.

THE PRESENT CONDITION OF MAN

H

VINDICATED.

'EAV'N from all creatures hides the book of Fate,

All but the page prescrib'd, their present state:
From brutes what men, from men what fpirits know,
Or who could fuffer being here below?
The lamb thy riot dooms to bleed to-day,
Had he thy reafon, would he fkip and play
Pleas'd to the laft, he crops the flow'ry food,
And licks the hand just rais'd to shed his blood.
Oh blindness to the future! kindly given,

That each may fill the circle mark'd by Heav'n ;
Who fees with equal eye, as God of all,
A hero perish, or a sparrow fall.

Atoms or fyftems into ruin hurl'd,

And now a bubble burit, and now a world.

Hope humbly then; with trembling pinions foar;
Wait the great teacher Death; and God adore.
F 4

What

What future blifs, he gives not thee to know,
But gives that Hope to be thy bleffing now.
Hope fprings eternal in the human breaft;
Man never Is, but always To be bleft,
The foul, uneafy and confin'd from home,
Refts and expatiates in a life to come.

Lo, the poor Indian! whofe untutor❜d mind Sees God in clouds, or hears him in the wind; His foul proud Science never taught to stray Far as the folar walk, or milky way;

Yet fimple Nature to his hope has given,
Behind the cloud-topt hill, an humbler heav'n ;
Some fafer world in depth of woods embrac❜d,
Some happier island in the wat'ry wafte,

Where flaves once more their native land behold,
No fiends torment no Christians thirst for gold.
To Be, contents his natural defire,

He afks no Angel's wing, no Seraph's fire:
But thinks, admitted to that equal sky,
His faithful dog shall bear him company.

Go, wiser thou! and in thy scale offense,
Weigh thy Opinion against Providence ;
Call imperfection what thou fancieft such,
Say, here he gives too little, there too much :
Destroy all creatures for thy fport or guft,

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et cry, if Man's unhappy, God's unjuft;
If man alone ingrofs not Heav'n's high care,
Alone made perfect here, immortal there:
Snatch from his hand the balance and the rod,
Re-judge his juftice, be the GoD of GOD.
In Pride, in reas'ning Pride, on error lies;
All quit their sphere, and rush into the kies.

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